US tops world Connectivity Scorecard despite broadband ills

A new study on the "connectivity" of countries goes beyond just measuring …

When it comes to using information technology well, people power is as important as wires, chips, and radio signals. That's one of the assumptions driving the new Connectivity Scorecard benchmark put together by Leonard Waverman of the London Business School. Waverman found that the US takes the worldwide lead on "connectivity" when measured in this way, but subpar broadband infrastructure holds the country back.

Waverman's study was sponsored by Nokia Siemens, and it attempts to measure how "usefully connected" countries are, not just how much raw infrastructure they possess. As Waverman puts it, only "smart" usage "helps make Connectivity a driver of productivity gains and hence economic growth."

Because of this focus, the scorecard rankings look a bit different than other, similar charts. Korea comes in tenth, for instance, even though it's a top performer on most technology metrics. According to Waverman's research, though, "very high performance in infrastructure is not matched by correspondingly high scores on usage measures, especially by businesses."

Despite being docked for broadband, the US skill set and deep level of IT use among businesses put the country on top. Sweden and Japan take the next two spots. The top ten developed countries are shown below.

Data source: Nokia Siemens

The highest possible score was a perfect 10, and the fact that no country scored higher than a seven shows that there's plenty of room for growth. No country did well on all metrics, either. Even the US, which led the field, didn't rank first in any of the main areas (business, consumer, and government), and the report points out that certain functions like mobile banking are actually "better developed in African countries than in the US or Canada."

Among developing economies, Russia and Malaysia took the top two spots for their high literacy rates and wide usage of IT.

Despite the good news for the US, the Scorecard once again illustrates the need for something approximating a national broadband strategy. The report notes that the long-term benefits from better broadband might be measured in "multiples" of the $500 billion figure that was thrown around in a 2001 report on the issue.